The popular band, reunited after several years, chose a romantic and stylized video treatment to introduce their latest single. To help realize this unique world, Meni Tsirbas was asked to both art direct the video and supervise its visual effects. Before beginning 3D production, Meni illustrated a series of production designs to establish the theatrical style of the piece. Storyboards were also created and then assembled into an early edit well ahead of the shooting day. This enabled all departments to know exactly what needed to be shot with minimal waste.

With over 150 shots having CGI, Meni started creating the 3D world early on in pre-production. During that time, actress and long time Tears for Fears fan Brittany Murphy signed on for the dramatic lead role.

With one day allotted to film all the green screen shots, Meni brought a portable computer with all the CG assets onset to aid in an efficient shoot. On request, any 3D scene could be modified, rendered, and composited real-time over the live video feed of the actors on the stage. Adjustments were often made simultaneously to the live action setup and the 3D environment, aligning both realities to offer the cast and crew a preview of the final composited shot.

For CGI post production, MeniThings worked closely with ?Defaultmind?, their new production headquarters, to develop a streamlined 3D pipeline that would allow quick creation, rendering and compositing. The most was made of Defaultmind?s fast new workstations to simplify the workflow, usually placing all 3D assets within a single scene to minimize the number of separate 3D elements.

Meni designed a schedule that required several shots to be completed and approved every day. This avoided the brutal ?crunch time? often associated with delivering a CG project. As a result, no-one at MeniThings was required to pull a single ?all-nighter? to meet the tight deadline.

With most of the 50 full-CGI shots completed just prior to shooting, MeniThings was in good shape to handle the over 100 live-action plates that would come in soon after the day of green screen. Artist Steven Rogers broke down the live-action plates into manageable groups. Special care was taken to pull clean mattes from Brittany Murphy?s elaborate hairstyle. The last of the 3D shots was completed a day ahead of the online edit, leaving some breathing room to make a few last-minute tweaks.

?Closest Thing to Heaven? is the first video from Tears for Fears' new album ?Everybody Loves a Happy Ending? and is an integral part of its market push. The video will be released in early 2005.

Article by Thomas Pike

Photos by Desiree Asher and Thomas Pike